Oxy-acetylene metal cutting torch devices usually have a removable torch tip included therewith through which the gaseous mixture flows prior to being combusted. The torch tips are available in many different sizes. Moreover, different manufacturers offer several different configurations of the different sizes of torch tips.
After a torch tip has been used, the seats located at the inlet end thereof, which separate the oxygen from the combustion gases, become worn, and leakage occurs thereacross. As the tip becomes heated during use, flash-back can occur, whereupon the torch apparatus is often internally damaged.
During the operation of cutting metal with an oxy-acetylene cutting torch, the outlet end of the tip accumulates slag thereon, and sometimes the intense heat causes rapid deteriation of the outermost face of the tip.
Many perfectly good but partially inoperative torch tips are needlessly discarded after the above undesirable defects have accumulated sufficiently to cause the torch tip to perform unsatisfactorily. Others skilled in the art have proposed various different tools by which the torch tip can be restored to satisfactory operating condition, as evidenced by the following U.S. Pat. Nos:
4,101,240--Fox PA1 2,242,821--Fanslow PA1 3,232,145--Wilson PA1 3,870,432--Strybel
None of the above mentioned prior art references provide a single tool which will accommodate a plurality of different size torch tips as well as different configurations of tips provided by various different manufacturers thereof. It would, therefore, be desirable to have made available a universal tool which will accommodate most torch tips, and which can be used to reface the seating surface at the inlet end of the torch tip and which also refaces the outermost face located at the outlet end of the tip, thereby restoring the torch tip to like new condition in a simple, straight-forward, and inexpensive manner. Such a tool is the subject of the present invention.